Expanded States of Consciousness Archives

On the numinous quality of psychedelic work, and why awe and humility belong together.

Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy Essentials | Part 3

In the previous articles in this series, I suggested that psychedelic-assisted therapy (PAT) is not a walk in the park. Old maps warned travelers with the phrase hic sunt dracones, here be dragons. It was a warning suggesting that beyond this point, the map becomes uncertain. Beware. Do not assume you know what you are entering.

That warning applies to psychedelic work.

Psychedelics open fascinating possibilities for healing, insight, grief, forgiveness, and spiritual meaning. They can help people encounter parts of themselves that have been exiled for years, soften rigid defenses, bring forgotten memories into awareness, and reconnect with something larger than the isolated self.

But fascination alone is not enough.

The theologian Rudolf Otto used the phrase mysterium tremendum et fascinans to describe the numinous: that which is simultaneously mysterious, awe-inspiring, frightening, and deeply attractive. This applies to psychedelic work. Often, before a ceremony, people feel both fear and curiosity. This is fitting. Something in us is drawn toward it, while something else trembles before it.

In many ways, psychedelics are like fire. Fire warms us, feeds us, protects us, and illuminates darkness. Around fire, stories are told, meals are shared, rituals are held, and communities are formed. And yet, we remain cautious around it. We do not assume that because fire is good, more fire is always better. We do not hand a torch to someone without preparation. Fire requires knowledge, respect, containment, and care.

Psychedelics do too.

The dragon is also a fitting image. Dragons are powerful, mysterious, unpredictable, and often guard treasures. In many stories, the task is not simply to defeat the dragon but to become worthy of the encounter.

The psychedelic renaissance is full of promise, but also of peril. We may reduce psychedelics to techniques, experiences, or shortcuts. We may oversell them as miracle cures. We may even assume that, since they can bestow so many blessings, nothing can go wrong.

That is simply not the case.

Psychedelics are not silver bullets. They won’t solve our problems for us. In some Indigenous traditions, natural psychedelics are referred to as plant teachers. This makes sense. Good teachers show what needs to be done, but do not do it for us. They reveal, challenge, support, and sometimes confront us.

We still must do the heavy lifting.

This is one of the great misreadings of PAT. Many want to believe that the substance will eliminate their problems just like paracetamol eliminates a headache. But there is more to this story. Psychedelics can make healing more possible. They open the door, but we still have to walk through it.

We may experience unconditional love, but then have to learn how to live from it. A painful memory may be recovered, but still needs to be integrated. A mystical experience may occur, but must be understood without inflation. Insight is not transformation. As Ken Wilber suggests, we need to convert altered states into permanent traits.

This is why preparation and integration are fundamental, not as annoying add-ons, but as part of the work itself. The experience is never separate from the container that holds it. The medicine should not be separated from the person’s mindset, the relationship with the guide, the setting, the boundaries, and the commitment to growth.

The fire needs tending. The dragon asks us to become deserving of the boon.

Enthusiasm without humility can lead to carelessness, inflated claims, naïve expectations, poor boundaries, and even harm to the very people seeking healing. A mature approach must hold awe and discernment together. Awe reminds us that something profound may be taking place. Discernment reminds us that fireworks do not mean healing. Fascination opens the heart. Responsibility keeps the feet on the ground.

Training is crucial.

Psychedelic practitioners require more than information; they require formation. The person preparing, guiding, and integrating these experiences needs more than technical knowledge. They need maturity, self-awareness, ethical clarity, relational skill, cultural humility, and the ability to remain steady when the unexpected appears.

We cannot truly tame the dragon, but we can learn how to work with it. We can approach it, listen to it, respect it, and join forces with it wisely. Not as master, worshipper, or conqueror, but as an ally.

The field does not need hype, panic, dismissal, blind devotion, or pollyannish naïveté, but a grounded orientation. PAT has enormous potential. But if we want this renaissance to mature, we need to remember that what can heal can also harm. We need maps, training, ethics, cultural respect, and honest conversations about risk.

The dragon usually guards a treasure. But it is not given gratuitously. It asks to be approached with humility, preparation, and respect.

Next: Experience Is Not Healing. On why powerful psychedelic experiences do not automatically become transformation.

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Why psychedelic guides need training, humility, supervision, and ethical accountability

There is an ongoing discussion in different forums about the problem of abuse in psychedelic circles and the need to train guides better. I could not agree more.

We all need to make a solid commitment to safety, professionalism, and accountability in the field of psychedelic-assisted guiding and psychotherapy, insisting on the importance of comprehensive training for guides. It is my hope that the psychedelic community worldwide, both aboveground and underground, takes notice and keeps this conversation going.

Helping others work with expanded states of consciousness is not an easy job. I’ve been at it for over 20 years now, and I’ve seen a lot. Of course, every profession has its occupational hazards. Still, I am convinced that, due to what it attempts to achieve, being a psychedelic guide is not for the faint-hearted. Aspiring guides should take note of this.

Psychedelics can be understood as nonspecific amplifiers or catalysts that make it possible to take a journey into one’s psyche and explore otherwise inaccessible deep recesses of the unconscious. This means that they can bring whatever is hidden deep in the unconscious to the surface. As any psychotherapist can tell you, this has incredible healing potential and, conceivably, is also a recipe for disaster.

It is common knowledge that the unconscious holds all kinds of repressed and disowned material. Among other things, it includes our darkest impulses, hidden wounds, and private fantasies, often of a sexual or aggressive nature. If that were not enough, we must add archetypal and transgenerational forces dwelling in the collective unconscious.

The psychedelic guide’s job description includes the willingness and ability to work with these wild subterranean currents, operating both in the client and the guide, to facilitate healing and growth. A good guide must be able to engage not only at the mental-emotional level, but also with the body, energetic, archetypal, and spiritual dimensions of experience.

To do this, guides need more than enthusiasm. They need clinical literacy, ethical grounding, relational maturity, somatic awareness, cultural humility, and a respectful understanding of the spiritual and ceremonial traditions they may encounter. Quite an undertaking.

With such a high bar to meet, mistakes are bound to happen. In Mexico, an old proverb says: “In the soap maker’s house, everybody either falls or slips,” meaning that one should not be quick to judge others because, sooner or later, we too will make a blunder.

In a way, guiding happens at the soap maker’s house.

But how can we reduce the risk of making such mistakes? The answer is quite simple: training, training, training. Or, more specifically, learning, doing our inner work, staying humble, and getting plenty of supervision.

Being fully aware of the pitfalls of guiding, any guide training should begin by discussing ethics. Then it should continue talking about ethics throughout and end by reminding trainees again about the value of ethical behavior and their responsibilities toward clients.

When I teach, I spend time talking about transference, including erotic transference, and countertransference; working with shadow material, both the client’s and the guide’s; working with physical touch; respecting boundaries; working with childhood and attachment wounding; and appreciating the power differential in the guiding relationship. I put particular emphasis on reminding students how and why the stakes are even higher when clients are in expanded states of consciousness.

However, talking about ethics is never enough. I help students understand why these ethical principles and healthy boundaries are needed. Experience has shown that ethical principles rarely work when presented as a list of “thou shalt not.” They only function when guides internalize and commit to upholding them.

As is often pointed out, psychedelics are going through a renaissance. Among the many aspiring practitioners who want to become guides, a few always want to do it for personal, often unconscious, reasons. There is often a guru or messiah syndrome somewhere to be found, or old hidden childhood wounds crying for attention.

I see my job as an opportunity to teach them that being a guide requires profound humility, endless openness to learning, and an unwavering commitment to serve others.

As expressed earlier, being a psychedelic guide or a psychedelic-assisted psychotherapist is not for the faint-hearted. It demands standards of care, ethics, and practice well above those in many related professions. The stakes are higher, and the potential for damage, and healing, is formidable.

Let us all reiterate our pledge to continue working to become guides devoted to such standards. Let’s do it together.